Foyston Gordon & Payne Inc Takes $10.47 Million Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Foyston Gordon & Payne Inc bought a new stake in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 66,250 shares of the CRM provider’s stock, valued at approximately $10,470,000. Salesforce accounts for about 2.2% of Foyston Gordon & Payne Inc’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 15th biggest holding.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in CRM. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the second quarter valued at about $11,396,844,000. J. Stern & Co. LLP lifted its stake in shares of Salesforce by 24,056.7% in the fourth quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP now owns 47,385,511 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $12,552,896,000 after acquiring an additional 47,189,352 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Salesforce in the fourth quarter valued at about $3,182,951,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership grew its stake in Salesforce by 130.2% during the 1st quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 12,659,217 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $2,363,096,000 after purchasing an additional 7,160,302 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp purchased a new stake in Salesforce during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $844,928,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Key Headlines Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Favorable earnings setup: Oppenheimer and other analysts see potential upside from Salesforce’s upcoming results, while market expectations point to a possible post-earnings move toward the stock’s highest level since January. Salesforce Faces Favorable Second-Quarter Setup With Upside Potential How Much Salesforce Stock Is Expected to Move After Earnings
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst support: Guggenheim reaffirmed a Buy rating with a $228 price target, while Cantor Fitzgerald maintained an Overweight rating and set a $250 target. The calls reflect confidence that Salesforce can capture demand for next-generation AI-powered, “agentic” enterprise workflows. Cantor Fitzgerald Salesforce Analyst Comment
• Positive Sentiment: Growth and capital returns: Zacks characterizes Salesforce as a strong growth stock, while a report highlights a record $27 billion quarterly share repurchase program. Buybacks could support earnings per share and signal that management views the shares as undervalued. Why Salesforce Is a Strong Growth Stock Salesforce Record Stock Buybacks
• Neutral Sentiment: Results are the next catalyst: Analysts are focused on revenue, EPS, and operating metrics for the quarter ended July 2026. Salesforce previously reported $11.13 billion of quarterly revenue, up 13.3% year over year, and EPS of $3.88, above consensus. Salesforce Q2 Earnings Estimates
• Neutral Sentiment: AI platform positioning: Coverage comparing Salesforce with ServiceNow suggests investors are rotating toward enterprise application software as AI investment broadens beyond hardware. Salesforce’s Headless 360 strategy and the Agiloft integration on AgentExchange offer additional evidence of ecosystem expansion. Salesforce Versus ServiceNow
• Negative Sentiment: Risks remain: The buybacks were funded partly with $25 billion of new debt, increasing leverage and interest obligations. Separate commentary questions whether Salesforce could become a value trap if growth slows or AI monetization disappoints. Salesforce Value Trap Analysis

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms have recently commented on CRM. Oppenheimer reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday. CLSA initiated coverage on shares of Salesforce in a report on Monday, July 20th. They issued a “hold” rating and a $165.00 price target on the stock. DA Davidson decreased their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $200.00 to $175.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Wall Street Zen lowered shares of Salesforce from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, August 1st. Finally, KeyCorp cut shares of Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 8th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-four have assigned a Buy rating, eighteen have assigned a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $249.87.

Salesforce Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:CRM opened at $209.20 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $171.33 billion, a PE ratio of 24.21, a P/E/G ratio of 1.13 and a beta of 1.16. Salesforce Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $146.32 and a fifty-two week high of $269.11. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $174.33 and a 200 day simple moving average of $181.56. The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. The company had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.Salesforce’s quarterly revenue was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.58 earnings per share. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 14.060-14.120 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 3.250-3.270 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were given a $0.44 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.8%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 20.37%.

About Salesforce

Salesforce, founded in 1999 and headquartered in San Francisco, is a global provider of cloud-based software focused on customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise applications. The company popularized the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model for CRM and has built a broad portfolio of products designed to help organizations manage sales, service, marketing, commerce and analytics through a unified, cloud-first platform.

Core offerings include Sales Cloud for sales automation, Service Cloud for customer support, Marketing Cloud for digital marketing and engagement, and Commerce Cloud for e-commerce.